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Episode 1 - World at War

To the casual observer, the Earth of this dimension wouldn't appear that drastically different from our own world. Microsoft still has its monopoly on the computer industry. Apple is dominating the MP3 markets. Hollywood is still cranking out the movies. But all is not as it would appear. This is a world in the middle of its third world war. A war that, as of yet, hasn't resorted to nuclear attacks and mutually assured destruction.

Histories of our to dimensions diverge on March 30, 1981, when John Hinkley, Jr. successfully assassinated US President Ronald Reagan. The further complication happened almost 4 years later, in March of 1985, when the Politburo failed to elect Mikhail Gorbachev as leader of the USSR, after the death of Konstantin Chernenko. Instead of disolving in 1991, as our history books tell us, the USSR continued to grow in strength, retaining its territories in its firm iron grip.

With a still strong Soviet Union, events in the middle east beginning on August 2, 1990, turned out very differently. Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, but this time, he did so with the support of the Soviet Union. The US immediately sent troops over to Saudi Arabia, and on January 12, 1991, the US Congress authorized military force to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Unfortunately, with Iraq being backed by the Soviet Union, it proved to be a difficult challenge. This was soon seen as another Vietnam for the United States.

When Hong Kong was handed over to China at midnight, July 1, 1997, this began a new era for the Chinese government. With the British out of their lands, they immediately closed all borders to foreigners, an action which concerned many in the world. Those concerns were made real on November 8, 1997, when the Chinese military aided North Korea in an unprovoked attack on South Korea, ushering in a second Korean War.

The situation rapidly deteriorated as the US, still fighting the war in Iraq, issued a draft, and sent more troops over to aid their allies in South Korea.

If any date could signal the actual start of the third world war, that date would be September 11, 2001. It was the date that the Islamic terrorists brought the war from the middle east onto US soil by hijacking planes and crashing them into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon, with a fourth plane being crashed by the passengers before reaching its intended target, which was believed to be Camp David.

Today, it is the height of the third world war. The Islamic Jihad, led by Saddam Hussein, has taken all of the middle east, including Israel and Jerusalem. All of North African countries along the Mediterranean are all members of the Arabic Jihad, threatening to expand further. Battlefronts for the Jihad rage in Greece and Italy, while terrorists take innocent lives within the heart of the allied western countries. Meanwhile, the Asian Communist armies in the far east have claimed almost all the Asian countries, including Japan, with their own battlefronts in the South Pacific including Australia and New Zealand. At the same time, the Soviet Union is pushing its way into Northern Europe, already claiming Norway and Switzerland, with battlefronts currently raging in Germany and England. On the Allied front, the US has seized Cuba, eliminating the communist threat from that location, while it battles on numerous fronts from Europe, to the South Pacific, to even within its own borders from constant terrorist attacks. Other Allied nations are caught in similar battle fronts across the world, or within their own borders.

It is in this climate of war and fear that the Crossovers find themselves thrust into. They would arrive in one of the deserts of California, a couple miles outside the city of Palm Springs, with the highway nearby to guide them into the city.

QC1: From this day forth you shall be called "Sprinkle Berryweather".

Kevin Flynn: The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships, motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day... ...I got in!

The 111 highway of Palm Canyon was quiet as usual, distorting any sense of sighting with the excessive heat, and remaining mum with only the occasional vehicle's roar, which moved too fast to even let us catch a breath. *This wasn't a road to walk by; the sun was right in the middle of the sky arrogantly threatening anyone who dared come out at this time of the day. *This would have been like any other day if it wasn't for a flash of light that exploded in the middle of the road disappearing as fast as it came, but leaving something behind… *a young man who was on his knees, covering his eyes by the excess of light surrounding him. *He was wearing a long jacket and dark jeans, he just couldn't be more out of place.

Rubbing his eyes, he stood up a little woozy. *Little did he know that everything had changed from now on.

"¿Pero qué pasó con la luz…?" *His words would be familiar to others, since this was just normal Spanish, but for some reason, his words would make so much sense in English as well… *"What happened with the light…?" *The young man rubbed his eyes once again, adjusting his eyesight to the new environment.

It was a cold winter's evening. At least as far as Semual knew. There was a roaring fire in the living room, and Semual's master was seated in his high backed chair, feet propped up on a small table, sucking on his pipe.

Semual was forced to do the chores again. His master said it was so that he could learn patience. He didn't want to learn patience. It was boring. He wanted action. He wanted fun. He wanted something other than sweeping the cold stone floors and trying to light a candle with only his mind.

Semual worked his way into the study. His master gave him explicit instructions when he was cleaning in the study. Never, never, never, touch anything on the tables or the bookshelves, under threat of being turned into a newt, or something unpleasant like that. Of course, his master was always threating to turn him into SOMETHING, but never did.

A bright flash of light was seen from the cover of his master's spellbook, which was lying closed on his master's desk. Curious, he walked over to the study. When his master called out, asking what was going on, Semuel simply replied that he was cleaning. A fragment of a gem of some kind was lying on the cover of the spellbook. Semual's eye's gleamed in his greed. That small fragment could earn him a fortune, he was certain.

Semual reached forward and touched the gem, just as his master was walking into the study. He didn't even have a chance to hear his master's shout of alarm when suddenly the bright light surrounded him, and with it heat unlike any he had felt in his 17 years. A thud was heard as the spellbook that the gem fragment was sitting on fell to the sand that Semual was now standing on. A similar clatter to the sand was heard as his master's staff found its way to this new destination along with Semual and the spell book.

By the gods!

Semual stated in shock, shielding his eyes from the blazing sun high overhead.

Archaeologist/Adventurer Oklamhoma Smith was working his way through a dark passage. He was sure that all the clues that he followed were leading him to the lost Vase of Babylon. It is said to be of pure gold with diamonds surrounding it on the side. Suddenly the floor beneath him falls away and he begins to fall. But luckily he has the bearing to grab his whip and throw it out grabbing a beam and swinging to the other side of the opening. That was when he saw it the beautiful golden vase just inches away. He smiles to himself and grabs it.

A split second later, he hear a click and looks up and finds a boulder the size of a plane rolling toward him.

OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

He turns and sends out his whip grabbing a beam again and glides across the hole in the floor. He lands wrong and stumbles and falls to the ground. Its then he sees a purple gem and greed gets the better of him and he picks it up. A flashing light blinds him and when he can see... there's no boulder and there's no tunnel.

Looking around bewildered...

Am I dead?

Then he shields his eyes.

How did I get outside?????????

Father of QuaxoSon of the Vampyre Lestat and LAWTwin of QwaringUnwilling brother of Qwaring''s Clone #1

He looked again at the collection of artifacts laid out on the table before him and laughed. He was going to make a fortune with these. At first, he thought that land acquisition he closed last year would yield nothing but a big pile of dirt. But he sent the archeologists anyway, just to satisfy him that the legends had been false.

He had quested after the Holy Nail for years, and here is was before him. He rubbed his hands greedily as he considered the offers that would pour in for the holy artifact and the other relics retrieved from the site.

As he pondered his future riches, a glimmer caught his eye. Looking down, he spotted a small gem. He looked oddly at the out of place gem, because it didn't belong there. How could such a perfectly crafted gem be found besides a 2,000 year old relic?

He doubted it was a mistake. The Archeologists he had sent were the best. They never even touched any of the artifacts when they dug them up, relying on precision instruments and tools to handle the fragile items instead. Their commissions depended on it.

Trickle reached out cautiously with one of his hands, looking around to make sure nobody was looking. He hesitated a bit as thought of the implications of this find. Deciding to think about it later, he reached out for the gem and the world disappeared in a swirl.

When things cleared up he was sitting by the side of a highway, somewhere he didn't recognize. The signs didn't look right and strange looking vehicles were driving on the wrong side of the road.

Given the unbearable heat and the weird cars driving on the wrong side of the road, Trickle assumed he had landed in Uhania (Australia when translated from Glooish)

Thoroughly confused as to how he had landed here, he chanced a look around. Standing around him were strange creatures that he had never seen before. They were hideous, looking like partially chewed pencil erasers.

Karen Arkham giddily descended the stairs down to the secret laboratory of Dr. Hawking. *The man was legendary among the Unseen Eye - as much as any super-secret, compartmentalized society of sinister scientists can have legends - for his successful subversion of Sir Robert Penrose's Big Bang calculations to produce the cunningly-named "Bigger Bang" explosive device and later the key components for the Hawking Death Ray. *Now, if only he could create a Dark Star to power it.

'Ahh, such are the trials of genius,' Karen thought to herself as she entered his lair. *Ominous whirring echoed through the laboratory chamber as Hawking's wheelchair crept up on her from behind. *"Karen. *Arkham," a sinisterly modulated voice played, brokenly, over a miniaturized phonograph, "You are. *Here. *For. *The gem." *A metallic arm extended from his armored, steam-powered wheelchair and pointed. *"This way."

Greedily, Karen opens the bx that she might examine the gem more closely. *What powers lay within, she wondered, what destructive potential might she unlock? *The gem seems to grow brighter in response to her desire as she reaches to grasp it.

And suddenly, Karen finds herself blinded by light and suffocated by heat. *Her first assumption is that the gem has exploded in her face but then her eyes adjust to the desert. *The heat, on the other hand, is almost unbearable, and soon she's shed her three petticoats and, fist to the sky, pronounced that the man who invented corsets will rue the day. *Rue! *Rue!

That matter attended to, Karen begins to search for something or someone that could tell her what was going on. *Exasperatedly, she begins trudging towards the strange cityscape she sees in the distance, keeping an eye out for any fellow travellers or perhaps a passing steam carriage.

Sagittarius thirteen to Lubbock base, c'mon guys pick up the phone. It's too soon to pop those champaign corks just yet, I still need to initiate primary burn.

**The radio crackles to life within Major James Panyk's helmet, breaking the monotony of his own breathing echoing back to him.**

>>Roger that, Sagittarius. We'll save the bubbly until you actually set down on Leoma.

**Panyk reaches out with a silver and grey sheathed arm and flips several of the switches on the control panel that rests less than a meter before him. His other gloved hand maintains its tightened grip over the control stick that will allow him to line up the one man landing capsule towards his destination, the small rose colored shape that seems to glow against the backdrop of the blackness of outerspace. The major takes a moment to savor the sight of the pear shaped object. Leoma, Earth's third moon, an asteroid that's nearly twelve thousand miles long. His destination. One of the first destinations on mankinds journey into the heavens.**

>>Hey, Sagittarius, are you day dreaming on us?

**Panyk glances away from the vision of whats to come that floats several hundred thousand miles past the capsule's main porthole. He looks around at the cramped, almost claustrophobic compartment around him. His eyes check over the many lights and gauges, checking them all and letting his years of training temper his instincts before replying to mission control, housed within a base on the planet so very far below the small space vehicle that floats on the threshhold between a lower orbit over Earth and Leoma.**

All systems are green. Sagittarius thirteen is good to go.

>>Alright, Sagittarius, Doctor Briet has some numbers for you to help align the capsule to- *Cchkkkkkk-cllkkk...*

**Panyk glances over to the radio reciever directly to the right of his helmeted head. The indicators light up, registering some sort of interferance with communications with ground control. A shower of broken glass fills the weightless, airless interior of the space capsule as a small shard of crystal shoots through the starboard porthole and imbeds itself into the control panel opposite of the now broken window into space. Sparks shoot out of the control panel. Cool green lights turn red, the cockpit is bathed in crimson, with danger. Alarms screech within Panyk's helmet. Blinding white light fills the inside of the capsule and consumes the entire vehicle. The lone astronaut assumes this is it, he's dead, and worst of all the mission is a failure.

**In one blinding moment Major James Panyk and the Sagittarius thriteen space capsule are thrown past the veil of reality...

**The light fades, the red lit cockpit comes into focus around the spacesuit wearing major. Broken glass floats around him, more sparks shoot free from the damaged control panel. The major looks out through the various small portholes. Space above, Earth below, but Leoma is gone. The astronaut begins pressing buttons and flipping switches in a desperate attempt to regain control of this situation. The interferance with his radio appears to be gone.**

Ground control! Sagittarius thirteen to ground control, do you read me, Lubbock base!? I was hit by something. It must have been one of those micro-meteors that you eggheads mentioned. I'm okay. The power control station was hit, but I think I can fix it. I also think I got turned around. I may have drifted off course because I can't see Leoma. Do you copy, ground control?

**More sparks fill the cockpit, more broken glass and now little bits of metallic debris join the weightless dance within the capsule. Panyk can feel a hum against his helmet. Vibrations flow through the entire spacecraft. Something, or more likely a lot of somethings are pounding on the capsule. More micro-meteors? With a jerk on the control stick the major activates the capsules retro-rockets, twisting the space vehicle so that he can look around and see exaclty what is hitting him and destroying his space capsule. His eyes widen behind the protective plastic of his helmet as he searches the heavens around him. Something enters through one of the portholes and ricochets off of two bulkheads and a few control panels before its momentum is spent and it drifts past Panyk's face-plate. A single bullet floats past his vision. One of the many that are hitting the outside of the capsule and tearing it apart.**

**Several switches are flipped, buttons are mashed. Metal plates slide down over the smashed portholes. Science instruments and anything that would weigh down the capsule too much are released into the void. The retro rockets fire and sends the bullet hole filled space vehicle falling towards Earth. The capsule falls past the automated satellite that had been spraying it with machine gun fire. The satelite that had mistaken the unknown space vehicle for an enemy attack on the nation that rests far below it. A satellite that proudly bears the image of the United States flag upon it. Once the capsule drops into the Earth's upper atmosphere the satellite stops its violent assault and relays images of the object to its controllers within the United State's military for further analysis.
**The capsule shudders under the strain of re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Panyk peers through the screen of the parascope like device that allows him to view out through the bottom of the caspule for landing on Leoma, but he now uses it to try to aim his landing on Earth. As a rumble fills the cockpit Panyk shouts into the microphone within his helmet.**

Lubbock, I can see the U.S. in the scope! I'm going to try for a spash-down in the Pacific! The capsule's pretty beat up, I'm not sure how long she'll hold up! I may have to eject!

**Another quick glance at the red or died out lights.**

That is if anything's even working!

**Alarms and buzzers fill the inside of the capsule. The cockpit becomes dark except for the glow of the red warning lights. Panyk struggles with the control stick before him. Both hands grip the control mechanism and tries to move it's stubborn length and aim the capsule towards the California coast, preferably the part that has soft water and not the part with unyeilding land. Grunts and groans fills the inside of the space vehicle as the falling vessel fights the astronaut for even the simplest of manuevers. Gravity pulls on the capsule, a barrier of air beats on and tosses the object and heat and flames begins to peel away at whatever the bullets did not tear through. Panyk knows that the capsule is most likely a death trap, his billion dollar coffin. But he's still too high to eject, even if the ejection mechanisms are even working, despite the offline status that the bullet riddled control panel displays.**

Aaaaghr!! Control! Control! If this is the time for last words- ! Rrrgh! If this is it- ! I- I just want you all to know- !

**Flames errupt from the floor of the small cockpit. Flames that jet up and through the small space. Fire fills the air. Panyk can feel the heat licking through the protective spacesuit that was meant to save him from the harshness of space travel. The plumes of red and orange flame fills his field of vision, blocking out the scope that was aiming his landing and the many instruments that he needs to control the capsule. He is now flying blind.**

AH CRAP!! I'M ON FIRE!!!

**The astronaut would not have chosen those to be his final words but the radio beside his head explodes, sending more debris and fire into the chaos that stews within the capsule. Fire, glass, metal, smoke, roaring noise, and death that is always looming over him is the world within the Sagittarius capsule as it falls blindly towards Earth.
**Then there's a light. A dim glimmer of something hovering near the major. He almost thinks its a piece of broken glass but it's not charred or covered with soot and it's just floating in below him and to his left. The desperate astronaut doesn't normally believe in miracles, but he also isn't trapped within several tons of bottle fire and falling towards unseen doom. So, using this glimmer as a sign, something calling to him, he pulls on the control stick with all of his might. The few remaining rockets sends the capsule tumbling into the direction that the glittering thing floats. The glittering moves now. Slowly drifting and eventually vanishes as the capsule is now falling almost directly over the area it was pointing him towards. Air hoses melt and break. Now Panyk is without air. He breaths in a mouthful of smoke and flame, coughing plenty of it back up into his visor. He is once again without a guide and unsure of anything except that it's impossible to survive inside of the capsule for another moment. He isn't sure how high up he is, whether he's too high to eject or not, but he knows for sure that it's too late to stay here. He reaches out a silver gloved hand and punches the ejection button. Nothing happens. The major curses the device while coughing up more inhaled smoke and flames. Again he punches the button. Again. And again. And again. The capsule moans loudly, protesting its pilots escape as the nose of the vehicle is thrown free by an explosion and the seat that Panyk is strapped to is ejected out of the flaming capsule and into the blue skies. The capsule continues its downward plunge while a parachute blossoms out of the back of the major's chair and opens wide to capture as much air as it can. The parachute opens wide and slows down the astronauts fall. The capsule comes to a quick death as it crashes into the dessert, several miles away from the highway. Panyk, sheathed in a silver and blackened spacesuit and strapped into his chair and the parachute and small storage compartment that are welded to the chair, descends slowly towards the desert many miles away from the crashed space craft. He comes to a soft, yet still jarring, landing several meters from a desert highway. The astronaut sits in his chair, panting and caughting, the parachute pools on the desert landscape behind him. A gloved hand reaches up and peels away the soot coated visor from his helmet, letting the blackened plate of plastic fall away. Smoke floats free from the inside of Panyks helmet. More coughing. But soon only laughter is heard.
**Panyk's alive and back on U.S. soil. There's nothing better than that after a disasterous near death experience.**

She'd been on her world when he'd reappeared. He told Kino that things had gotten complicated and that she had to help. Aside from owing him her life, she wanted a reason. The cave and its gems within. One had been broken, shattered in a fight between gods. They were heading to a world called Earth but across a sea of realities. Kino looked shocked as Janus causes her world to vanish and her to reappear before Mt. Rushmore. Janus handed her one of his masks and pointed to the sky. Kino saw the light of a gem streaking towards her and then everything went white.

As the light faded, Kino saw herself standing on a black rock with yellow and white markings. She looked around and drew her bow. The heat of this land was troublesome especially given she'd just been in northland winter.

"Who are you people? And...what...."

The heat was getting to her after all. Kino swayed and dropped her bow.

Gaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!RRRRmmmmphhh!!!Hal & Logan screamed as they bounced accross the street in a small water bubble which eventually popped, allowing them to climb out.Rhniph Nalishwa?That is a good question.Hal replied.Where are we?

-------------------------------------------------------------
We're the universal source for bird food and spitz.

Logan- The "Wolverine" once, now his adamantium has all grown old and rusted. His healing abilities keep him from ever growing old, but his rusty claws are known to give him lock jaw on a regular basis.

Hal Jordan- DC character that the company just would not let die. Now, 10,000 years from present day, he is a simple farmer.

The year was 3246. *Mankind, in all its technological genius had expanded to the stars. *For the human race, the sky was no longer the limit. *From the very first step outside the reaches of our own solar system, mankind was united like never before. *Encountering new forms of intelligent life across the universe changed mankind in a way nothing could have. *The realization that we were not alone in this universe bonded the people from Earth together. *And together they expanded across the farthest reaches of the galaxy, until the Reik came. * *The Reik are a savage and violent race of reptilian creatures, who thirst for conquest and battle. *Their savagery is only matched by their technological affinity for war however. *And so it was, for whatever reason, they struck. *Some believed that jealousy of the human race was their sole drive, other believe they were threatened by what mankind could truly have become, but that is all speculation. *One by one the colonies of Earth fell in the fires of the Reik. *Billions of lives across thousands of worlds were enslaved or slaughtered, and Earth was no exception. *The planet Earth, as it exists today, is no more than a slave world, run by the Reik where humanity is oppressed under a tyrannical rule. *But there are those who continue to fight, no matter how hopeless their cause seems. *They are known as the United Earth Defense Coalition. *Robert Kain is an admiral in this organization, commander of the Leviathan, the flagship of the Terran forces. *His continuing job is to guard Icarus Station, a research facility hidden in the rings of the plant Saturn. *This facility serves as mankind's last and only hope against the Reik. *For years they have been developing a new viral weapon that shows the promise of being able to exterminate the Reik once and for all. *Up until this point the station has gone unnoticed by its enemies, but that was about to change this day.

Admiral Kain sat behind his desk in his dimly lit office aboard the Leviathan. *A half empty bottle of whiskey, a shot glass, and a burning cigar served as his only company. *He had been drinking again. *He looked over at the pictures of his wife and kids that were arranged about the desk. *They looked so happy, so joyous. *But they were all dead. *Kain had good days and bad days, and this was shaping up to be a bad one. *The Reik had taken everything from him, his friends, family, everything. *He rolled up his left sleeve and looked at the pattern of scars lining his arm, remembering that fateful night. *Before he was an Admiral, Kain was in the Earth Special Forces, carrying out covert missions on conquered worlds against the Reik. *He had the bad luck of coming face to face with one on one mission. *The average Reik is about eight and a half feet tall and weighs about seven hundred pounds. *They were bread for war, and in hand to hand combat, a human stood no chance. *But somehow, some way, Kain managed to emerge the victor. *It cost him his left arm, left leg, and both of his eyes. *The arm and leg were now replaced with the most technologically advanced prosthetic limbs mankind could create. *In fact, if it wasn't *for the scars and his slightly increased strength in those limbs, one couldn't tell the difference. *His right eye was also replaced with a new artificial one, and it worked a hell of a lot better than the last one, allowing him to see greater distances and *multiple light spectrums. *His left eye, however, he didn't let them fix. *Sometimes you just need something to remember these events by, and so he wore an eye patch over his left eye. *Kain unholstered one of the plasma pistols of his which resided on his hip and placed it on the desk. *He had two, the set of them were given to him by the Prime Minister of Earth for his service to the planet. *A month later the Prime Minister was killed when a Reik strike foce decimated his escort fleet on his way to a allied planet. * He picked it up and place the barrel under his chin. *How many days was it that he just wanted to pull the tigger? *It seemed like most of them. *At that moment a voice rang over his intercom:

"Admiral Kane, Commander Keyes is on the line"

"Patch him through"

Kain would reply. *Frank Keyes was the only family he had left. *They knew eachother since they were kids. *Frank was the Commanding officer aboard the Icarus. *Kain would holster his gun as Frank came up on the video screen.

The beast was the name given to the Reik high command battle fortress, the pinnacle of their wartime technology. *They didn't know what the lizards called it in their own language, all anyone knew was that when you saw it, it meant your death. *The Beast was seven hundred miles long, the largest ship ever constructed in the galaxy, seven times the size of the Leviathan. *Stories of it decimating entire fleets of Terran ships were known by all in the UEDC. * This news alone hit Kain like a brick to the face as he stood up to run out the door.

"Prepare to jump and at the first opportunity get the frack out of here...We'll hold them off."

Frank: "But you can't possibly take all of them down Bob.."

"All that matters is Icarus. *I'll give you the time you need to jump to some isolated area far away from here. *Your station is the only hope we've got."

And with that the video screen shut off and Admiral Kain exited his office and walked out onto the bridge. *He spared no time barking out orders as he sat down at his captain's chair. *His eyes fell upon that strange crystal sitting on his arm rest. *A mining team found it a couple of weeks back when they were mining for ore in the rings. *They said it didn't resemble any element or compound known to man...The Admiral just liked to keep it around, for luck. *He would need pleanty of it today. *At that moment three Reik battle frigates dropped out of hyperspace in front of the Leviathan. *They were no more than a scouting party, but they wasted no time pummeling the Earth ship with everything they possessed. *

Small explosions would vibrate the decks of the Leviathan as the Reik vessels attacked. *And suddenly a half dozen nuclear warheads shot from the missile batteries of the Leviathan and screamed towards the frigates, annihilating them all in a massive display of lights and releasing a shockwave that rocked the Leviathan. *Just then IT came. *The massive hull of the Beast emerged from light speed into view, two significantly smaller capital ships following by its side. *There was no way out of this.

"Ignore the two command ships, head for the Beast, charge main cannon and fire when ready. *Pour everything we have at it!"

There was no way the Levaithan would win this fight, but that didn't matter. *All Admiral Kain had to do was buy Frank enough time to jump away. *Massive explosions tore through the hull of the ship as the Beat unloaded on it with all its fury. *The command deck of the Leviathan rocked back and forth and those inside were tossed about. *The front hull of the ship glowed an intense red hue as its main cannon charged, and shortly after an imense beam of energy screamed forth from the hull and tore into the Beast, ripping a long gash lalong its port side.

"Main cannon has been fired, energy cells recharging Admiral.."

An officer on the deck would shout out.

"Forget it, we're not going to survive long enough to fire it again. *Roll the ship 180 degreese, ready the ventral side artillery arrays. Full speed ahead, aproach the Beast from its underside. *When you get a clear shot let loose with everything you've got."

Admiral Kain had studied the schematics of the Beast night and day for months. *He knew well enough that the only place it was vulerable was from its underside. *Rolling a ship like the Leviathan, at one hundred miles in length, was no small task, but this was the only way they could hurt the invincible ship. *And so the Leviathan slowly but surely rolled upside down and approached the Beast from beneath. *And letting loose with all its arsenal of weapons, the Leviathan began to blast the underside of this mammoth vessel, sending explosions tearing throughout its hull. *The ship righted itself once more as it broke off and began to slowly make its way around the Beast, circling it and blasting away with everything it possessed. *All this time the Reik ships tore through the hull of the Leviathan with their explosive barrages, words of fires breaking out across the ship and hull breaches sucking out the air flew through the command deck...There was only one thing left to do.

"Get Commander Keyes on screen"

Admiral Kain would shout, and in only a few seconds Frank was staring at him through the large computerized screen.

"Looks like this is it old friend. *Get the frack out of here, I'll take care of these scaley bastards. *Its been a pleasure knowing you."

Frank: "Wha...what do you mean Bob? What are you planning on doing?"

"Just get the frack out of here now!"

Frank would grow silent for a few moments, then respond with a salute. *Admiral Kain returned the favor, and the video screen went blank. *Kain would stand up, and grab the intercom, beginning to address his entire crew.

"As I'm sure you all realized this is a fight we simply cannot win. *We're outnumbered, outgunned, and we're banged up pretty badly. *I plan to overload the reactor core of the Leviathan and steer it straight into that fracking scaley ship and send them to whatever God they pray to. *But I cannot force any of you to give your lives. *So for those of you with family still living, for those of you who do not wish to take this course of action, evacuate the ship and no less will be thought of you. *These lizards have taken everything from us. *They have killed our families, annihilated our worlds, and on this day we will make them pay."

Admiral Kain would stand there looking out of the bridge at the massive ship that lied before him. *One of his command officers would call out to him, notifying him that no escape pods were being launched. *And so this was the final moment.

"Overload the reactor, full speed ahead, aim straight for the bridge of the Beast"

And so the Leviathan, flaming and smoking from the hull raged forth at the Reik command ship, still blasting away with all of its firepower to the last moment. *Kain watched at the pointed hull of the Leviathan slammed into the Beast tearing through it in a display of explosions. *He witnessed as they tore up the hull of his ship, growing ever closer to the command deck. *A shockwave tore through one of the lower decks, throwing him back into his chair. *His hand fell upon that strange crystal, the rock, unexplicably glowing and pulsating. *The reactor of the Leviathan would breach ushering forth explosion with a force dwarfing that of a nuclear blast. *The Icarus engaged hyperspace and vanished from sight as the shockwave of this blast alone tore the Beast in half. *People on Earth could see this firey display in the night sky as all four ships were completely annihilated and turned into floating piles of rubble. *But before this could occurr a white flash of light illuminated the command deck of the Leviathan, and Admiral Kain vanished from sight merely fractions of a second before his ship was obliterated.

Admiral Kain opened his one functional eye, seeing the clear blue Earth sky for the first time in a long time. *Was he dead? *Where was he? *What was going on? *All these questions ran through his mind, and the gravity of what had happened merely seconds ago hit him. *He did not know if his crazy suicidal stunt succeeded. *Was the Beast destroyed? *He was supposed to be dead. *How could he have gone from the orbit of Saturn to here in a mere instant? *All that mattered was that Icarus Station survived. *Kain looked about, finding himself standing beside an old paved road in the middle of a desert. *There hadn't been roads like this on Earth for about 800 years. *This couldn't be Earth then. *Kain's technologically enhanced eye scanned the horizon and picked up the view of a city in the distance. *He had better get walking. *And so, still clothed in his UEDC uniform, plasma pistols and all, he began to walk down that long and lonesome road.